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While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Archives for June 2008

Meet PK.

June 10, 2008 by heidi 2 Comments

My sister PK got in last night via 1998 Ford Escort with her friend Erika. Here’s a Q&A with the Buffalo recruit:

What are you doing right now?
What does it look like I’m doing? I’m desperately looking for a job. [Closes the St. Pete Times.]

What was the worst part of the drive down from Buffalo?
West Virginia. Not knowing if my car would make it over the hills.

What was the best part of the drive?
The final hotel. The fact that the bed was so huge despite it being disgusting.

How many items of clothes can you fit in one of those vacuum-sealed bag?
Over 50 items.

Do you have them sorted according to item?
No I was stupid I didn’t do that. Now I just have bags exploding and I have to pick through them.

What’s your future apartment’s must-have amenity?
This sounds really bad, but a washer and dryer in the apartment or in the apartment vicinity.

Good luck with that.
OK. Air conditioning. It must have air conditioning.

What’s the most you’re willing to spend on an apartment?
Assuming it’s just me and depending on the job, no more than $800.

Any idea yet on how you’re going to meet a man?
Networking.

What are you a CEO or something?
I know what I’m talking about.

Is there anything you forgot to pack?
Yes. My Pantene Pro-V Anti-Frizz Serum. (Points to head.)

What kind of music did you guys listen to on the drive down?
We hardly listened to music although Leona Lewis’ Bleeding came on every time we got off our route. And then every time we got back on the route Leona Lewis’ Bleeding would come on again.

What is your dream job?
My dream job? I really don’t know what it is. Just a place where I feel comfortable and work with people who are nice. I don’t care what kind of job it is.

What about Florida do you predict is going to drive you batty?
The traffic, the old people and people with that Florida air about them.

Florida air?
You know what I mean.

No I don’t.
Like DeAnna from The Bachelorette.

Is she from Florida?
She’s from Georgia. That’s close enough.

[PK’s friend Erika walks in the room and sits on the couch beside her.]

Erika, what kind of driver is PK?
I think Pam would agree with me. We had some moments. We had some oh shit moments.

PK, what kind of driver is Erika?
Erika couldn’t drive because she’s too long for my car and I also have lifts under my seat so she couldn’t drive. I told her I wouldn’t put her through that torture.
Erika: She kept saying ‘those lanky legs can’t fit in this car.’ My legs would probably get stuck on the pedal. It would be full gas the whole time.

What’s your fast food count at?
P: I took coupons with me for McDonald’s and I showed Erika how proud I was to have them and she said they only take them in New York and Pennsylvania. We didn’t discover that until West Virginia so we ended up at BK and she got cinnamon buns.
E: Only for a dollar though. I woofed those down. They put something in those.
P: You felt great after those cinnamon buns.
E: And for only a $1.

Spot any snazz vanity plates along the way?
P: Pretty Pam was our favorite plate.

Someone had a pretty Pam plate?
P: Believe it or not there are some pretty Pams out there.

What’s the garbage situation look like in your car?
E: All our fast food accumulated by my feet.
P: It kept getting higher and higher until we returned the old McDonald’s wrappers at the window of a new McDonald’s.

What are your plans for tomorrow?
P: Frying at the beach.

What brand vegetable oil did you pick up at CVS?
P: It’s Banana Boat.

Any noticeable differences between the north and the south?
E: Oh God everyone was so friendly. We had to get used to that, how friendly people are. People here are really big at staring.
P: Like the guys at the gas station who made animal noises.
E: We had a group of guys making animal noises in Virginia. Like farm noises, actually I don’t even know if they were farm animals. I think they were wild animal noises.
P: It was like we got out of the car … like we were being birthed. Like it was labor.
E: And we’re both stretching and I see them out of the corner of my eye and I said, ‘Pam lets slide back in the car.’
P: They walked out of their way to our side of the pump.
E: They were gross industrial workers.
P: And they were making animal noises.

What’s the first thing you’re going to buy for your apartment?
E: You need bedding.
P: Well, I need a bed.


PS. The picture above is of a space-saving-air-sucking bag packed with clothes.

Why we move.

June 6, 2008 by heidi Leave a Comment

This one goes out to my mom, who reads Lance regularly and whom I imagine is at this very moment standing in my sister PK’s empty bedroom crying.

My youngest sister, PK is moving to Florida this weekend. Last we spoke, PK was stuffing the remainder of her bedroom into boxes, sleeping on my parents’ living room couch because her bedroom was uninhabitable. (I imagine my mother said: “Jesus Christ it looks like a bomb went off in here,” her favorite expression for describing four pairs of discreetly tossed socks and an unmade bed.)

By this time Monday PK will be in St. Pete, schlepping her bags up my concrete stairs. Hopefully most of her crap stays in the car as I’ve informed her that the JoeHo pad is not spacious.

It takes big balls to move away from home, or at least that’s what people say. “You’re brave to just pack up and start over,” …that’s another thing people say. And in a state where the locals say Coke not pop. The blasphemy!

Blah. It’s not about the size of your cajones, or about being brave. It’s about gravity. Some people can’t help it. They move because they can’t stay. The only math problem I ever solved went something like: a train is traveling 75 mph in a southern arc. Picture you’re waving goodbye in the distance. Are you a.) sitting in the train car or b.) standing at the depot?

Me? I’d be goddamned if I was the one standing at the depot, especially at PK’s age. At 22 I was the one in motion.

Since my sisters and I never went away to college we never experienced the thrill of buying our first bottle of shampoo as an independent apartment-renting adult. I was never a very domestic bird, yet when I left the nest four years ago I barked “Bring on the shower curtain purchased at Target,” like I was a gum-snapping football coach. I got my jollies off once just buying a vacuum cleaner at K-Mart.

Back home we rarely cooked meals for ourselves, since it felt like mom catered to our individual schedules, wrapping leftovers in tinfoil in the fridge, leaving notes on the countertop explaining what tinfoil packet contained what. In college my commitments and my sisters’ commitments were split between school, part time jobs and close-knit friends, most of whom we befriended in the 4th grade.

Moving to a town where no one knows who you are is like hurling a white canvas at a painter and demanding he go to town on it in every color imaginable. “Make me something pretty out of this lily-white canvas. Or don’t. It’s up to you really. Only problem is, if you don’t you’ll feel unfulfilled, empty and nostalgic for the wild paintings of your past. You painted before. Paint again.”

I never experienced growing pains like I did when I moved to Sarasota. Was it because I moved 1,200 miles away or because I was approaching 25? I heard of the Quarterlife Crisis, I’m well aware of the annoying narcissistic mid 20s meltdown. Just when I thought my moving to sunny Florida had exaggerated this, my best friend Ro confessed that she too was feeling bat shit crazy and she’d only moved across town.

If our infant-selves could speak, we’d make scholarly observations about our bodies stretching, pulling and tugging like Gumby dolls. Going from six pounds to twenty in six month’s time. If we could speak as infants we’d say, “shit this sucks, but shit this is cool!” It’s traumatizing so we cry. We wail because after all, we’re babies.

At 23 it wasn’t much different. “Shit this sucks, shit this is cool” is pretty much how I felt for a few years. The growing pains weren’t physical but my reaction to them was still the same. I was still a baby.

After one year as a reporter I quit my job and started working at a marble yard, counting slabs of granite in the 90-degree heat, making deliveries of cement and stone tile to waterfront homes. Working here I stopped pissing on the rich and feeling sorry for myself as I was scrounging away money to purchase a car to replace my broken down ’86 Civic. I knew eventually I wouldn’t have to pedal a bike to work every day alongside day laborers, who for obvious reasons didn’t have drivers licenses. At 23 I knew, like my Nana says, that it would pass.

I was bloated from a diet of Reese Cups and Miller Lite; a bona fide decision maker making decisions far from home, showering behind a Target curtain, pining away for my next big move. So I bought a car, took the summer off, drove across the country, fell in love with Wyoming and Idaho and Oregon and Missouri. I returned to Sarasota in the fall and fell in love with Joe.

I didn’t know what decisions were until I moved away. I remember making a piss poor one once when I first arrived to Sarasota, agreeing to watch a coworker’s child on a Saturday evening and assuming I’d have enough time to squeeze in a mid-morning bike ride, I rode 40 miles out to Longboat Key. I realized when I reached the shores of Whitney Beach that there was no way in hell I was making it back to watch that kid. And the one person I knew in town who could pick my ass up wasn’t answering the phone.

Mom, this is a long one so I apologize for that. PK is going to be OK. You remember how I used to call you homesick, crying and bitching then proclaiming happiness then wallowing in self-pity all in one day?

I like to believe I’m in the clear now. It took three years and in those three years I grew stronger and meaner and nicer, tougher and happier. Would I still feel this way if I moved five miles up the street from you? I don’t know. PK won’t know either. Sometimes you don’t know why you leave a place until you arrive somewhere else.

Please tell PK I cleaned the bathroom toilet in the spare bedroom. She knows where the key is. I’ll see her Monday night when I get out of work.

PS. The picture above was taken near a waterfall in Oregon.

Snide & The City.

June 1, 2008 by heidi 1 Comment

Since I spent my morning responding to this review of Sex & The City: The Movie I might as well post it here too. How cute that the guy who wrote the review is named Lance too.

For better reviews click here and here.
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Why do I even blogger?

If you really want to know why I continue to write here, read this post.

Lance lately

  • Old School Values
  • Land of Hives and Honey
  • The Happy Camper
  • Truth Bombs with Henry [No. 2]
  • Truth Bombs with Henry [No. 1]
  • By now I’d have two kids

Social commentary

  • Crystal on Pug worries, or what to do when your dog starts having seizures
  • heidi on Land of Hives and Honey
  • Roberta Kendall on Land of Hives and Honey
  • Jane on Pug worries, or what to do when your dog starts having seizures
  • reb on The Happy Camper

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Oddities

Reading material

Wild by Cheryl Strayed Travels with Charley Home Game bossypants just kids the time travelers wife Boys Life The-Liars-Club My Uncle Oswald Stephen King On Writing

Me.

Heidi K

Joe.

Joe on guitar

Henry.

henry as werewolf

Chip.

Chippy in a cupboard

Buzzy.

Buzzy

Why Lance?

This blog is named after my old friend Sarah's manifestation of a dreamy Wyoming cowboy named Lance, because the word blog sounds like something that comes out of a person's nose.

About me

I'm a journalist who spends my Mondays through Fridays writing other people's stories, a chronic procrastinator who needs structure. I once quit my job to write a book and like most writers, I made up excuses why I couldn't keep at it.

My boyfriend fiancé husband Joe likes to sleep in late on the weekends, but since we have a kid now that happens less than he'd like.

Before Henry and Chip, I used to spend my mornings browsing celebrity tabloid websites while our dog snored under the covers. Now I hide my computer in spots my feral children can't reach because everything I own is now broken, stained or peed on.

I created Lance in an attempt to better spend my free time. I thought it might jump start a second attempt at writing a novel.

It hasn't. And my free time is gone.

But I'm still here writing.

I'm 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 and I've yet to get caught up in something else, which is kind of a big deal for a chronic procrastinator.

How I met Joe

If you're new here and looking for nirvana, read this post.

And if that’s not enough…

heidikurpiela.com

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